About

Last updated on December 17, 2012

Laura, Austin, Zack, Spencer

Hi, we’re the Hanson family. We thought life might have more to offer than a mortgage and a career, so we decided to go looking for it. Back in July 2012 we set out on our adventure – not entirely sure where it might lead us. The goal was simple – to LIVE.

Adventure, purpose, service, learning, and love are those things which we believed would bring us true Happiness, yet we weren’t living like we believed it, for some reason. We found ourselves stuck, living lives of quiet desperation, afraid to change course. This adventure is our delayed response to those long-held convictions of true Happiness. Better late than never!

Our Belief
We believe the key to a better world is peaceful, voluntary cooperation on a global scale – starting with families and then extending over oceans.

Our Mission
Work to break down personal and national borders. Strive to inspire families to bond and strangers to unite. Remind the world how similar we all are, and thus encourage a spirit of global cooperation, entrepreneurship and activism.

Why Costa Rica?It’s beautiful, exotic, affordable, and safe. We’re after a slower-paced, more family-centered lifestyle, and Costa Rica is a good fit for this. We’re excited to learn new languages, and Spanish is a great one to start with (especially since Spencer lived in Buenos Aires for 2 years from 2001 to 2003 serving as an LDS missionary).

What has your timeline been like?

03/12/2012 – our adventure began. We signed papers to put our house on the market!

08/29/2012 – flew to San Jose, Costa Rica! We started out in a hotel in Escazu.

09/08/2012 – our first adventure with our first new amigos in the beautiful rainforests of Monteverde.

09/15/2012 – moved into our new rental in San Luis, Heredia, Costa Rica.

03/15/2013 – Our 6 month rental contract ends…..

How do you pay the bills?
We’ve saved up enough money to live frugally for about 1.5 years. If we can’t figure out how to make enough money to sustain ourselves before then, we’ll have to crawl back and beg for another cubical job. Here are our projects that are bringing in money right now. As you can see, we have a lot of work to do!

Lost & Found Family Website and YouTube Channel – You’ll notice that there are ads running on our website and videos. The more trafic we get to our website and videos, the more revenue these ads generate. As a matter of fact, the best way to support us is to share our videos and posts with your friends!

Baby Scientists YouTube Channel – We started Baby Scientists YouTube channel back in August of 2011 to document some of our fun, family learning activities and share them with others. We monetized the videos in October 2012.

Amazon Affiliate Earnings – Amazon awards us 4-8% of every purchase that is placed using our special Amazon reference link. If you bookmark it, you can support us every time you shop at no cost to you. http://amzn.to/T60kaL

L&FF Monthly Earnings Chart

Lost and Found Family Monthly Earnings

What about sending your kids to school?
One of the perks we’re most excited about on this adventure is to homeschool our boys. We’ve explained more about our ideas on education on our Learning tab.

Is it safe?The world, just like any city, has it’s dangerous neighborhoods. Obviously, we avoid these.

When we first arrived in Costa Rica, I did not feel safe. Everything was unfamiliar and scary. It seemed every conversation we had with anybody for our first week here gravitated toward how paranoid we needed to be.

As we became more familiar with the places, faces, and the culture, we realized our initial fears were over-done. We do feel safe.

What about healthcare?Healthcare in Costa Rica is about 1/3 the cost of similar care in the US. A big reason for so many expats retiring down here is because of Costa Rica’s reputable, affordable healthcare.

For these first 4 months, we’ve been using temporary health insurance, in case of major disaster. We may upgrade to a longer-term policy, but we are still researching this out.

What is the cost of living in Costa Rica?We’re living comfortably for about $1300 per month. Rent is $750, and utilities about $80. Food is more expensive than we thought, especially dairy! More detail here – Our New House and the Cost of Living in Costa Rica.

What were some of the biggest surprises as you prepared to leave?

Our house selling in 1 week!

The ducks selling in a few hours (who would have know there was such a demand for 6 Swedish Blue ducks).

The overwhelming amount of stuff we had. Even after selling $7,500 worth of stuff we still had a house full. (I never want to have this much stuff again.)

Being contacted by Kenzie’s original owners out of the blue to see if we were selling Kenzie, which in fact we were! They sold Kenzie to us because their youngest had an allergy, but had since grown out of it.

Zack and Austin being so good about selling their toys. We thought it would be hard for them to get rid of their favorite toys, but they are being surprisingly mature about it! They really seem to understand well the bigger picture of what we are trying to do.

The number of people that tell us they know somebody else that has done the same thing and moved to Costa Rica. We thought we were being all rebellious and original by shirking the cubical career life and fleeing to Costa Rica, but just about everybody we talk to reminds us that we are not original at all. It is actually very comforting to know that we are not the only ones.

Do you need help? How can I help?Yes we do! And so glad you asked! Please check out this page – Get Involved.

Some Good Quotes

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone. - Henry David Thoreau

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now. - William Hutchinson Murray

Mike Marshall turned me onto your blog. Mike and I are good friends from our childhood and high school years. I have lived in Costa Rica for about the last year. If you want more info and ground advice from a fellow American in CR hit me up.

My wife and I have been talking about you, your family and your quest. WE LOVE IT!! Please keep us in mind and count us as friends; because we already like you and your husband a lot. Tell him that he is now officially on my hero list.

Marilyn (my wife) say to give up everything except your pillow. In all of our travels [ we’ve moved 16 times in the last 20 years – yeah we’re gypsies too], pillows have become the only material thing that matters.

May laughter, love, health and joy be a constant travel companion for your family.

Thanks for such awesome encouragement, Paul! Laura had so much fun talking to you the night you came over for the pots and pans. Sorry I missed out. Great advise on the pillows. Already glad we heeded that little tidbit from a seasoned traveler.

Oh, I had no idea what you were doing. FANTASTIC! I just sent Spence to check out your blog. We are facing life choices – some of which would require pretty much walking away from all our “glorious stuff” – the house, vehicles, toys, etc – and you have given me such encouragement! Its easier to be brave when someone is brave before you. We’ll be following your blog and wish you all the best on this great adventure!

Are you aware that you can sell things on ebay that you drop ship from Amazon? It is relatively easy. You only need accts with payal, ebay and amazon. You never touch or store anything. FYI. I am the mom of one of your peers, btw.

Hanson Family, there are some problems wiht your website that need to addressed. This could help to bring in more income for you. when I try to click on some of the links, it gives me a error “Overflow stack at line 0″ I am not a web designer, however I would be more than willing to help in following those links if it would allow me. Just food for thought, good luck on your adventure. My wife and I are planning to follow in your footsteps in the next few years. we are just trying to get all ends tied up before we take the step. we are planning to be in country this May for a visit and start looking at houses. would love to hear back from you all.

Hi Guys,
My wife, daughter (21-months) and I moved to Grecia CR in April and found inspiration from your blog, however, noticed that you haven’t posted in a while. Are you still here?
Please email me, I have a few questions and ideas for you.
-Michael

We just moved back to the States last month! Shoot, that would have been fun to meet up and hang out. How’s it going for you guys so far? You liking Grecia? We did a quick stop there once and it seemed really nice.

So I have read much of your website and you and your family are very brave and clearly have a spirt for adventure. I was a Marine for 23 years and lived abroad often and am considering doing exactly what you have done. I am a photographer and would love to run ‘workshops’ for tourists in CR. I have one major question for you; what was the legal requirement or hoops you needed to jump through to move there, or is your situation temporary there?

Hey Nick, I know you left this comment awhile back but in case you’re still interested this topic is something I’ve been getting advice on in preparation for our move to Costa Rica. The FAQ from my colleague Michael Simons at http://www.tanktopsflipflops.com/ is AMAZING. He’s been down there for 9 years and helps people relocate. He’s been a wealth of information and the FAQ is better than a guidebook. Enjoy!

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We're a family on an adventure to find deeper happiness and richer fulfillment in a different kind of living. We're leaving behind all the busyness, and going in search of adventure, service, learning, and love. Come join the journey!

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